KOLLWITZ, KATHE
Publié le 22/02/2012
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KOLLWITZ, KATHE, ne´e Schmidt (1867–1945), sculptor and graphic artist;
her empathetic work made her one of the century's best-known women* artists.
Born in Ko¨nigsberg, she was inspired by a socialist-Christian upbringing. She
moved to Berlin* in 1885 to study at Karl Stauffer-Bern's School for Women
Artists and pursued similar studies in Munich during 1888–1889. After marrying
the physician Karl Kollwitz in 1891, she and her husband settled in Berlin's
Prenzlauer-Berg district. Her first print cycle Der Weberaufstand (The weavers'
rebellion), based on Gerhart Hauptmann's* play, was completed during 1893–
1898. Achieving a gold medal in 1899, the work ensconced a lasting vision that
included recurrent images of death. A similar series, Bauernkrieg (Peasants'
war), appeared in 1908. In 1903 she began an eight-year freelance connection
with Simplizissimus. While her style resembled that of the Bru¨cke artists, she
never identified herself as an Expressionist.
World War I, in which she lost a son, led Kollwitz to internalize the pain of
the widowed, orphaned, and bereaved. Daily contact with the proletariat, many
of whom were treated in her husband's office, reinforced her commitment to
the dignity of human life. In 1919 she was the first woman elected to the Prussian
Academy of Arts, an honor that brought a studio and, from 1928, a salary
as a Prussian civil servant. Encouraged by the sculptor Ernst Barlach,* she did
Krieg (War) in 1922–1923 and Proletariat in 1925 as woodcuts. Her image
memorializing Karl Liebknecht,* Die Lebenden den Toten (The living to the
dead), was completed as both a lithograph and a woodcut. She helped found
the Gesellschaft der Ku¨nstlerinnen und Kunstfreunde (Society for Women Artists
and Friends of Art) in 1926, but spent much of the decade doing posters
for left-wing, international relief groups. Some of these—Deutschlands Kinder
Hungern! (Germany's children are starving!), Brot! (Bread!), and Nie Wieder
Krieg! (Never again war!)—are among her best work.
The NSDAP expelled Kollwitz from the Prussian Academy in March 1933.
Although she worked the remainder of her life in Germany, evacuating Berlin
for Moritzburg (near Dresden) in 1944, the Nazis made her an ‘‘unperson'' by
ignoring her.